Waking up in the desert, taking one last look at the Door to Hell, we got back in our 4x4s and headed towards the border. This was a long drive, taking four hours along atrocious pot hole-littered roads stopping en route at the historic Konye Urgench. Unlike the rest of wacky Turkmenistan, Konye Urgench was much more like what we would be seeing in Uzbekistan - being a UNESCO Silk Road historic city. However being Turkmenistan the site was relatively underdeve...

Waking up in the mountains we made our way back by minibus to Ashgabat. We first stopped off at the Türkmenbaşy Ruhy Mosque, located in Gypjak, just outside the capital. This impressive mosque has capacity for 10,000 people - the largest in Central Asia, and is located in the birthplace of Turkmenbashy. Not only is it visibly impressive being filled with gold, but also represents both the Qur'an as well as Turkmenbashy's own book, the Ruhnama in equal...

Over the last few years having settled into working life I have tried to spread my holidays throughout the year, with many short weekends away, as well as a big holiday lasting a week or two. After having visited India for a week back in January, in September I made the big trip of the year to Central Asia. Having originally attempted to get on the tour in May, missing out due to my delay in booking, I went on Lupine Travel's second tour which actually fitted mu...